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Introduction:
Resilience, gender and healthcare in the Nordic region

Angelica Simonsson 

Why a gender perspective on resilience and healthcare?

The Nordic welfare states have long been seen as role models in combi­ning equality, accessibility and high quality of life. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and other societal crises have exposed several vulnerabilities in terms of resilience in healthcare, particularly in relation to gender structures and gender equality. To ensure that the welfare system remains sustainable and inclusive even under pressure, a clearer understanding of the gendered dimensions of resilience is needed. But how are crisis, resilience and gender connected?
To start, we discuss how previous experiences and collective under­standings shape our interpretations of what constitutes danger and crisis. Predicting the future and possible dangers and sources of recovery tends to be based on our experiences and images of what has come before. Contemporary interpretations of what constitutes danger or a crisis are largely based on previous experiences and shared understandings.
Our understanding of what consti­tutes a crisis seems to require a kind of dramaturgy. A crisis is something out of the ordinary, and as such we imagine it beginning somewhere, building to a crescendo and then ending. The crisis has a before and an after. Those who address the dangers of the crisis and counteract the misery it inflicts act within a specific time frame. These heroic practices are often identified as extraordinary and necessary. They are lifted out of the everyday, made visible as something fantastic, good and decisive. However, there are often other people involved whose achievements are taken for granted and overshadowed.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, heroes and their heroic deeds were seen in different attire than we had previously been accustomed to. The white, blue and green uniforms of nursing assistants and nurses suddenly took on a different meaning in the collective understanding of danger and rescue. This was attire that kept the coronavirus and dangerous disease at bay. Medical scrubs, plastic visors and face masks became symbols of resilience, and those who wore them daily were seen as tirelessly performing heroic deeds. In the UK, healthcare workers were applauded daily as they left their homes to go out into what was presented as a battle. In the Nordic countries, the applause did not take hold in the same way, but for a period of time, food boxes were distributed to healthcare workers, and the overwhelming consensus among the public was that these healthcare workers were performing heroic deeds and fighting for us all. For a period, the collective under­standing of the female-dominated healthcare and social care sector was transformed. Here was a battle, and here were heroes fighting it – for a time. Then the vaccine entered the scene, and the scientists who deve­loped it gradually took over the status of heroes. The work on the healthcare floor continued but the food boxes became more infrequent. The crisis was considered over.
But it was not only applause that accompanied the working lives of nursing assistants, nurses and care assistants during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those working on the frontline also had to endure heavy criticism, not least from relatives of those affected by the disease and for circumstances that the nurses and care assistants themselves were often more than dissatisfied with but had no mandate to change. On the frontline, they found themselves caught between bureaucracy and budgets on the one hand and ethical conduct, stress and compassion on the other.
Based on this retrospective view of the COVID-19 crisis, we can see how reflections on resilience with respect to future crises are based on the intersection of our understandings of time, crisis, gender and work. This requires us to dig into, examine and challenge our ideas about what a crisis is, what the function and value of welfare is and how the future can ever be (pre)reflected. It also requires us to examine and challenge how images of femininity and masculinity shape our understanding of women and men as groups and how this impacts our expectations of the work they do and how we value it. In other words, we could say that a lack of imagination about the heroic deeds that will save us and keep society together and functioning in future crises risks rendering dangerously incomplete images of what future resilience is and should be.

Ideas about welfare and resilience

The perception of welfare resilience is closely linked to perceptions of what welfare is and can be. It is therefore relevant to ask whether there is an ambiguity in traditional but nevertheless prevailing percep­tions of welfare and resilience. What characterises understandings of welfare and what characterises understandings of resilience? Who are the people who work in the welfare sector and what are the needs to which work within the welfare sector must respond?
As a work environment, healthcare within the welfare sector is strongly female dominated. The work itself, providing healthcare and social care, is often gender coded as feminine, or at least not masculine. A traditional view, and one that still prevails in contemporary society, is one that sees the need for care, i.e. needing help and social support to cope, as a sign of weakness; it is therefore also often gender coded as feminine, or at least not masculine. This is despite the fact that both men and women need healthcare and social care during their lifetimes.
So, what is resilience? What do we perceive as resilience and resilient systems? The concept and its meaning are multifaceted and will be discussed in more detail later. For now, however, we can focus on its connotations of resistance and robustness. There is seemingly an implication that resistance requires power and strength. In our prevailing, traditional, understandings of femininity and masculinity, these characteristics are typically associated with masculinity.
How can a sector characterised by a strongly female-dominated work­force that identifies and meets feminine-coded needs be understood as strong, robust, durable and resilient? This may require some reflection, challenging our own understanding of gender and how different actions are often linked to perceptions of gender. Welfare resilience, in terms of healthcare, is not just about technology, resources or organisation but also, to a large extent, about relationships, justice and representation. Raising aware­ness of the relationship between gender and resilience is therefore not a side task but a key to sustainable resilience in healthcare in Nordic welfare states during future crises.

Welfare and healthcare systems in the Nordic countries

While the welfare models and healthcare systems of the Nordic countries are similar, they have certain differences. These short sections do not claim to summarise or cover the nuances of these systems or the systems in their entirety. They are intended to provide sufficient context for the essays in the publication and the overarching issues of gender and resilience.

Nordic welfare models

There is no single accepted definition of the ‘Nordic welfare model’ (Kvist et al., 2012). However, some common features and differences can be described. In general, it can be said that the Nordic concept of welfare is broad and encompasses both material and immaterial resources, with collective resources being seen as important in many phases of life (Kvist et al., 2012). Esping-Andersen (1990) categorises the Nordic models as social democratic, comparing them with more liberal or conser­vative models. The Nordic welfare states do not focus solely on remedy­ing problems when they arise but rather trying to prevent them from arising in the first place. This can be done, for example, by striving to change structural income differences and reduce social inequalities in terms of people’s opportunities to work and start a family (Kvist et al., 2012). While the Nordic welfare states are built on these funda­mental principles, ideas and approaches associated with market liberalism are now prevalent in these societies. The common features of the models include: universal bene­fits that guarantee basic welfare services to everyone regardless of income; high public expenditure financed through taxes; a strong public sector that provides health­care, education and social care; and comprehensive social insurance with a focus on, for example, unemploy­ment benefits, pensions, sickness and parental insurance. Differences between the Nordic models include the degree of decentralisation, the level of participation and organisa­tion of private providers within welfare services, the approaches taken to participation and security in the labour market and the extent of gender equality policy measures.

Perspectives on Nordic welfare models

Universal access to welfare services has contributed to a high degree of equality in the Nordic countries (Kvist et al., 2012). When describing the Nordic character, however, it is important not to oversimplify it as what is sometimes referred to as ‘Nordic exceptionalism’ (Keskinen et al., 2021). This exceptionalism has slightly different meanings across different academic disciplines. In general, the concept describes a tendency to emphasise the Nordic character as particularly fair, equal or equitable, while descriptions of, for example, the colonial history of the Nordic countries or persisting inequalities are not mentioned, or at least conveniently sidelined (for further reading, see, for example, Keskinen et al., 2021; Angell & Larsen, 2022; Larsen et al., 2021b).
The cornerstones, aims, systems and organisation of the Nordic welfare states have been examined and criticised in terms of how they work in practice, what their effects are and have been, and how notions of the Nordic welfare state models have been oversimplified. This has been approached from various perspectives and with a focus on different elements of both the welfare state models and their healthcare systems. For example, gender equality indices often show that the Nordic countries are among the most gender equal in the world, but these indices are often simplistic and thus risk contributing to a skewed, or at least reductive, picture of gender equality in the Nordic region (Kirkebø et al., 2021). Von Saenger (2025), for example, argues that current social developments are challenging the Swedish welfare model.
Despite a strong welfare state, cracks are clearly visible in elder care, with inequalities between women and men and linked to socio-economic status (von Saenger et al., 2023). Von Saenger et al. (2023) show that working-class daughters care for their parents to a greater extent than others. This informal side of the welfare state, in which respon­si­bility is unevenly distributed across the population, needs to be studied and problematised beyond simplistic indices. To understand the effects of welfare state models and systems, the complexity of people’s living conditions needs to be taken into account. For example, health inequality does not appear to be any less prevalent in the Nordic countries than in other Western European countries, which is highlighted as paradoxical given these countries’ redistributive social policies (Dalh & van der Wel, 2015). To study and ultimately address this, it is impor­tant to tackle inequality itself, rather than primarily problematising health aspects (Douglas, 2015). Douglas (2015) argues that we must go beyond health and asks rhetorically why we do not address the root cause of health inequality, namely inequality in society.

Nordic healthcare systems

In a report, Schmidt et al. (2022) provide an overview of the Nordic medical care and nursing systems. Below, outlines are presented for each of the five Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, based mainly on this report.
The Nordic healthcare systems are all largely publicly funded. Overall, these countries’ healthcare systems are regulated by a healthcare act, as well as other laws governing social care, social services and patient safety. Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have three administra­tive levels, while Iceland has two. The systems are generally described as having a relatively high degree of decentralisation, with the exception of Norway, which is described as semi-centralised.
In Denmark, supervision is conducted at the national level, while specialist and psychiatric care is organised at the regional level and medical care and nursing care services at the municipal level. Challenges in the Danish system are described as including difficulties in coordinating primary care, social services and specialist care.
In Finland, legislation, regulation and licensing is a responsibility at the national as well as regional level, while care, health and medical services have been provided by 21 so-called welfare areas since 2023.  Challenges in the Finnish system are described as relating to coordination and equality, which it is hoped will be addressed by the relatively recent structural reform.
In Norway, legislation and budget allocation are managed at the national level, while at the regional level there are specific authorities responsible for specialist care. At the municipal level, primary care is provided by general practitioners who operate their own practices. Challenges in the Norwegian system are described as including coopera­tion between the municipal and regional levels.
In Iceland, healthcare is organised and planned at the regional level, while healthcare services are provided at the local level. Challenges in the Icelandic system are described as including frag­men­tation and challenges in primary care.
In Sweden, legislation and the distribution of state subsidies is managed at the national level, while the regional level provides specialist care, psychiatric services and primary care. Social care and social services are a local responsibility. Challenges in the Swedish system are described as including weak primary care and few permanent care contacts. In recent years, various initiatives and reforms initiated at the national level have attempted to strengthen local healthcare but with limited results so far.   
The focus of the report (Schmidt et al., 2022) is on the Nordic countries’ work towards more integrated healthcare and social care, which is why this perspective is particularly emphasised. However, it is striking that all five countries are described as having common challenges in terms of (1) coordination when responsibilities are transferred, i.e. when a patient moves between different administrative levels, (2) the scale and coordination of primary care and (3) demographic developments, with an ageing population and a declining younger population.
A quick overview such as this makes it clear that the healthcare systems of the Nordic countries function differently in terms of governance, organisation and responsibility. From a common starting point of the fundamental principle of universal welfare, different healthcare systems have been developed. They differ in terms of both levels and how responsibility and mandates are assigned within and between these levels. In other words, the systems have fairly similar goals, but how they are administered differs. This also results in different conditions in terms of how the systems act and respond in crises. Vold Hansen et al. (2023), for example, highlight the scope for flexibility and standardi­sation based on the different conditions that exist in Norway and Sweden as a key aspect with regard to the central control and coordina­tion of their healthcare systems. According to Vold Hansen et al. (2023), this may have affected the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in both countries. In other words, the framework for the Nordic welfare states and the healthcare systems it encompasses manifest both differences and similarities with regard to the conditions for dealing with future crises. This brings us to the topic of resilience in welfare, which is discussed in the next section.

What is resilience?

Resilience is a multifaceted concept that is used in many different contexts, but broadly speaking it can be described as the ability to withstand, adapt to and recover from stress or crises. One way of expressing it is in terms of the capacity to cope with pressure by adapting to something new, or the ability of a system to return to ‘normal’ after an unforeseen event (Wiig et al., 2020). Another way of understanding resilience is to say that it is a system’s ability to both cope with change and continue to develop (Stockholm Resilience Centre, n.d.). Systems are under­stood here in a broad and unspeci­fied sense, and can be anything from an individual to a forest or an economy. Fundamental to all these general descriptions of resilience is that systems exposed to disruption also have the basis for renewal. The concept attempts to capture the ability to manage and harness change within a given system.

Resilience in different areas of society

Resilience is a concept that is used and discussed in several different areas of society and is therefore ambiguous: depending on the area being discussed, the concept has slightly different meanings.
Within the broad field of the environ­ment, for example, one focus of discussions is the ability of different ecosystems to withstand and recover from events such as fires or storms. In social planning, it is on society’s ability to withstand, adapt to and recover from events such as flooding in cities through specific urban planning. In the field of technology, it is how different IT systems can with­stand cyberattacks. In economic terms, it is the ability of markets to withstand and recover from events such as a financial crisis. In psychology, it is individuals’ ability to withstand and recover from various types of stress and trauma, such as divorce. The examples go on.
Even within the same field, the concept can have several meanings depending on the level of the system in question: are we referring to resilience at the global, national, regional, local or individual level? There is also a built-in time dimension that affects the type of resilience in question: are we referring to resilience before, during or after a change or shock (Ignatowicz, 2023)? Or are we referring to this time span as a whole? As mentioned, under­standings of crises have a certain dramaturgy.

Valuation of time and workload  

However, a common interpretation is that resilience is seen as a kind of multidimensional process that refers to the ability of a system to respond to limited periods of time characteri­sed by greater challenges, shocks or stress than usual. This therefore requires an assessment of both time (what constitutes a limited period of time?) and load (what constitutes a ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ load?) in the system. As can be seen, there is room for different interpretations and perspectives of the concept.
In the case of a discussion on resilience in healthcare, the question of how and when consensus and understanding is considered to have been reached with regard to aspects of time and other valuations must also be raised. Determining what constitutes resilience within a given system can be seen as an exercise of power: a certain period of time and level of stress might be considered extraordinary, while another period of time and level of stress will be considered normal. Who has the prerogative of interpretation in these considerations and what are the consequences?

Resilience as a perspective on healthcare  

Instead of talking about what resilience is, that resilience covers a certain area or represents a certain type of security system or adapta­bility within the framework of an ecosystem, a healthcare system or a city, we can look at resilience as a perspective. Like other perspectives, such as the gender perspective, it is based on a set of reference points that different actors include in an analysis. For example, a gender perspective on healthcare can shed light on how care is organised, provided and allocated between and within women and men as groups, and how this appears to happen in different ways and to a certain extent based on different premises. Similarly, a resilience perspective on healthcare systems can highlight the ability or inability of different parts of a system to withstand stress, flex, adapt, learn and develop. Asking the question ‘What is resilience in healthcare?’ can therefore be somewhat misleading. Depending on the perspective applied, different parts of healthcare systems will appear to be more or less salient to investigate and discuss. Are we thinking primarily from the perspective of the care recipient or the care provider? Do we mean local, regional, national, Nordic or inter­national healthcare? Do we weave in factors such as age, functional variation, ethnicity, migration background and level of education?
Discussing resilience as a perspective on healthcare thus opens up new questions and allows us to shine a light on the systems in partly new ways. It also places demands on the analyses that are carried out: it is not a matter of identifying and defining specific conditions (‘this is resilience in healthcare!’) that can then be handed over to politics and practice to map out and manage. Instead, it is about problematising an empirical area with the help of analytical concepts to gain insight into things that may previously have been hidden or taken for granted or whose meaning may previously have been understood differently. Applying resilience as a perspective, it is thus possible to make practice and empirical data appear in slightly new ways. A resilience perspective therefore has the potential to offer a special lens through which to view healthcare, revealing certain practices, circumstances or functions in a different light. 

Different levels and actors 

The particular perspective on resilience that is taken informs the different levels, actors and strategies in focus. This could be at the system level, where the focus may be on flexibility and surplus capacity to quickly reallocate resources. It could be at the individual level, where the psychological and physical capacity of healthcare personnel has consequences for the overall capacity of the system, including working conditions, working environment, family relation­ships and more. It could involve secure technology and digital capabilities, the supply of resources such as medicines and medical equipment, the organi­sation’s capacity for learning, the ability to collaborate between different actors or the ability to achieve a more equal distribution in terms of the administration of care needs and provision. The list could go on and on.  

Resilience in healthcare research

In healthcare research, resilience is often highlighted as an important component in ensuring that health­care systems can meet challenges and continue to deliver high-quality healthcare (Wiig et al., 2020). Research also focuses on defining what resilience is and how it can be measured (Ignatowiczs, 2023). Here, resilience refers to the ability to develop the quality of systems such that they can be maintained and developed as they are affected by periods of high stress or unforeseen shocks. Al Asfoor et al. (2024) highlight, among other things, available resources, networks and the working environment of staff as key prerequisites for resilience in medical care and systems. However, it is not just a matter of preventing, with­standing or adapting during times of additional stress. When resilience is discussed in health­care research, a broad perspective is often taken that includes how the healthcare chain as a whole and its individual parts respond to variations, not solely from a preventive perspective. The discussion also focuses on learning and improving, based on what has been successful and what has gone wrong (Hedqvist et al., 2024).
Research shows that resilience in medical care systems needs to be based on patient needs (Behrens et al., 2022). Research on resilience often focuses on the quality of healthcare and how it is linked to patient safety. How healthcare needs are met thus becomes a factor for consideration with regard to maintaining and optimising quality in the system. However, it should be emphasised that there is consider­able uncertainty even within research about what resilience in healthcare systems means (Ignatowicz, 2023). As a field, research on resilience in healthcare has been identified as fragmented and in need of greater clarity (Agostini et al., 2023).
Another example of discussions of resilience in healthcare is the OECD (2023) report on how we can prepare for the next crisis by investing in resilience in the healthcare system. Accord­ing to the OECD (2023), the COVID-19 pandemic showed that healthcare systems are not resilient to shocks, with consequences for the global economy and cohesion. The report under­stands resilience as important for managing shocks. The meaning of resilience here is based on an understanding of crises as unforeseen, extensive and time limited. The report presents some areas within healthcare systems as particularly vulnerable, which has negative consequences for resilience. Among other things, it emphasises that inequalities left the systems unprepared and that the systems were understaffed and underfunded before the crisis. 

Gender and resilience perspectives on healthcare

When a resilience perspective is crossed with a gender perspective on healthcare, an additional layer is added to the analysis. This, in turn, has consequences for practice, policy and research. More perspectives provide an opportunity to identify and highlight more strengths but also, above all, imbalances and weaknesses in the Nordic healthcare systems of. This highlights the consequences of the systems for citizens, both those in need of care and those who provide care. In the results of the OECD (2023) report, for example, it becomes clear that equality perspectives need to be considered to provide a more complete analysis of strengthened resilience in the future. 

Social dimensions

A resilience perspective combined with a gender perspective has the potential to highlight and problema­tise the social dimensions of health­care systems and their function in society. These dimensions broadly concern the different consequences of the systems for different citizens in need of care, different citizens who provide care and the society that hosts the systems. From these perspectives, a system that is fair, inclusive and gender equal can be seen as being more resilient in terms of consequences for care recipients, care providers and the society and population that relies on the system to deliver healthcare and nursing.
The OECD (2023) is not alone in highlighting social dimensions in analyses of the resilience of health­care systems. Previous research has highlighted that a resilience pers­pective can reveal that conditions such as limited access to resources and a lack of employees can be self-perpetuating factors in the systems (Wiig et al., 2020). Vold Hansen et al. (2023) argue that ‘organisational slack’ is needed, with room for sufficient organisational flexibility at various levels, for coordination to be efficient during crises. Factors such as working conditions and working environments, and how they function and structure conditions, then become further factors to consider with the aim of understanding how the quality of systems can be main­tained and optimised under additio­nal pressure and stress and in the event of unforeseen events. Working conditions, working environments, the relationship between work, family and leisure time for those working in the sector and so on, thus become necessary parts of analyses that seek to identify something about resilience in healthcare systems. Who are the people working in healthcare systems? How do their working conditions structure possibilities for a sustainable health­care system? How does work within the systems structure the possi­bi­lities for a liveable life for those who sustain them?

Intersectional perspectives on vulnerability in crises

Research highlights the importance of starting from patients’ needs in understanding resilience in medical care (Behrens, 2022). Patients are a heterogeneous group, and previous research has clearly shown that crises such as pandemics and wars tend to affect groups of individuals to different degrees and in different ways. How severely and in what ways someone is affected can be linked to factors such as socio­economic status or position, ethni­city, disability, gender and more (Chisty et al., 2021; Siller et al., 2022; Vedadhir et al., 2023). In other words, vulnerability and the need for care are not evenly distributed across the population but rather can be clearly linked to different power structures such as gender, ethnicity, disability and education level.
To obtain as complete a picture of the problem as possible, it is there­fore necessary to take an inter­sectional perspective on resilience in healthcare. This provides a more comprehensive picture of what the needs will look like and, above all, an opportunity to address these needs ahead of time by confronting the fundamental problem of inequality. To understand health inequalities, Hill (2015) argues that an analysis needs to take into account social structures (such as the labour market and education system), social positions (such as gender, ethnicity and sexuality) and media­ting factors (such as behaviour and environment). This reflects the shift in thinking that has been called for in research, and as mentioned in an earlier section: to focus more clearly on the fact that inequality in itself is a health factor (Douglas, 2015).
To take this reasoning further, from a resilience perspective on healthcare in the Nordic region, it is necessary to try to identify and address, for example, structural and social factors that construct and perpe­tuate inequality in society. If the resilience of welfare is to be strengthened, it seems that inequality in society also needs to be reduced.
In the second part of the publication, we see how Mulinari problematises gender, class and liveable lives through an analysis of the temporal aspects of working conditions in medical care. It becomes clear that an analysis of the sustainability of the medical care system needs to take into account the temporal aspects of work based on how they structure and shape the living and working conditions of workers. Lapidus’ text provides a problema­tisation of class, gender and age in health insurance systems. The text emphasises the importance of examining the complexity of how unequal access to healthcare affects not only individuals but also trust in the welfare society as a whole. Liljas and Burström problematise age and gender in analyses of healthcare and social care systems for older adults and conclude that greater resources need to be made available for the care of older adults. In their text, Duvander and Lundgren highlight the importance of challenging and problematising outdated gender perceptions of family and working life in planning for a heightened state of alert.

Resilience and gender perspectives on time and the future

Another dimension of resilience and gender perspectives on healthcare is the time frame being discussed with regard to future resilience. In the simplest terms, and as Solli (2023, p. 185) writes in his reflections on the welfare state, ‘When is the future?’? What happens to our understanding of resilience if we consider the current situation in parts of the healthcare system to already be one of crisis? What happens if we shift both our perception of crises and future time frames to include contemporary conditions so as to problematise the impact on unfore­seen future crises from that perspective? If we are already in a crisis, does that shift our under­standing of what is needed to strengthen resilience in the future? If we are already in a crisis, does that shift our understanding of the sustainability of the work being done in healthcare today?
Time is a necessary analytical dimension and direction for know­ledge generation when reflecting on future resilience. A gender and resilience perspective can problema­tise our understanding of a crisis and its dramaturgy by challenging our understanding of the future/​time in question. One way to discuss resilience in the future is to place concern and time at the centre of our thinking. By using contemporary concern as a method, we can make a contemporary risk assessment and thus try to better prepare for future crises.
Crises seem to imply a certain time span, which in turn can be seen as linked to notions of sex and gender in its various stages. The causes of crises and their immediate manage­ment tend to be masculine coded (Hobbins et al., 2020). How we understand crisis and risk, and what we understand as crisis and risk, is therefore not free from gender perceptions (Hobbins et al., 2020). This has consequences for our understanding of when (in time) a crisis is upon us. What type of risk or threat is understood or ‘qualifies’ as right or sufficient to be defined as a crisis, and by whom? Gender and resilience perspectives on healthcare can thus challenge our under­standing of when a crisis is present, thereby helping us to develop sustainable systems, both now and in the future. Interpretations of what is considered a risk and what is considered a vulnerability in society is influenced by norms of masculinity and femininity (Ericson, 2020).
Vold Hansen et al. (2023), for example, argue that the COVID-19 pandemic affected more and more areas as the crisis was redefined. They describe how what was initially limited to a health crisis gradually expanded into a social crisis (Vold Hansen et al., 2023). Understanding the problem provides a certain definition, which in turn defines the needs present and response required. In this way, the understanding and definition we apply will delimit the governance (laws and regulations) and administrative organisation for control and management that is implemented or engaged. It also has consequences for society’s picture of who is considered to be affected. A health crisis may be limited primarily to those who are perceived as working in or in need of medical care, whereas a social crisis is much more widespread.
Another example is provided by Ericson et al. (2024), who argue that both crisis preparedness and crisis management are gendered. Applying a gender perspective to the manage­ment of forest fires, among other things, Ericson et al. (2024) show how different crisis-related situa­tions receive or do not receive public recognition. Masculine-coded practices, such as being on the frontline of firefighting, receive recognition and attention, while feminine-coded work involving care and bureaucracy are overshadowed (Hobbins, 2020). The crisis manage­ment system tends to exhibit a kind of gender-segregated chain of professions, with masculine-charged first responders at one end of the spectrum and feminised care and support, which takes care of the wounded and traumatised, at the other (Ericson et al., 2024).
The time dimension, of course, also encompasses a focus on issues that are important for the future. But how do we become literate about the future? How can we develop our ability to understand and ‘read’ the future before it happens? Based on existing research, questions can be asked about future conditions and events. We can use dimensions of the past and present to create frame­works and patterns on to which to project our ideas about the future. 
The essays in the publication raise questions that highlight the importance of challenging the time dimension in the perception of crises. What happens when the present is already characterised by uncertainty and when some people have already been able to secure peace of mind for the future? In Lapidus’ text, we are presented with arguments that challenge the current system, in which certain social groups have access to private health insurance. In the text, Lapidus discusses how trust is eroded in welfare states that over time develop parallel systems, under which some can receive priority privately. In this way, fears about the future can manifest feelings of security and peace in the present – for some. And what about older adults, among whom anxiety is already widespread? Liljas and Burström write about healthcare and social care for older adults and experiences gained during past crises and pandemics, from which systems seem not to learn. What about all those who are already anxiously caring for others? Mulinari’s text reflects on the working environment for nurses who work and wear themselves out under conditions beyond their control, resulting in many being unable to continue working in the profession. Duvander and Lundgren urge us to reflect on how past notions of gender, family and work will present problems if war postings are to be implemented in the future. They emphasise the importance of not clinging to old ideas about the roles people take in family and working life, as this creates false assumptions when we imagine how society should function in future crisis situations.

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